Posts Tagged ‘country’

In an interview with CNN last night, President Shimon Peres said that if “Gazan mothers want to sleep at night, they must understand that all mothers want to sleep at night” including Israeli mothers.

He also said that “no country in the world would agree” to being bombarded with rockets.

Here’s what Peres said in the Interview:

“There is a permissiveness, they will learn there is no permissiveness, to kill. And if they want to run their lives properly and … their people properly, they cannot be permissive in killing and shooting at us.”

“It’s not just killing. We cannot afford that a million mothers will not have a night’s sleep because they have to watch their babies [to make sure they will not] be hit by rockets.”

“No country in the world would agree to it. Without exception.”

…

“We shall try to stop it by all the means we can mobile and use. And We can.”

“We don’t think that we are defenseless. We are restrained. We don’t take initiatives. We are careful to respect human life and we shall be careful. But if they want that the Gazan mothers want to sleep at night. They must understand that all mothers want to sleep at night with their babies.”

This is a portrait of King James II by Nicolas de Largillière, c. 1686.

James II was King of England and Ireland, and also doubled under the name James VII as King of Scotland. His reign began on February 6, 1685.

He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. After he produced a Catholic heir, the English gentry invited his son in law William of Orange from the Netherlands to invade their country. James II abdicated in a hurry in 1688 and fled to France. He was replaced by William of Orange who became William III, ruling jointly with his wife, who was James’s daughter, Mary II (both Protestants) and together they were the William and Mary team.

James made one half-hearted attempt to take back his country in 1689, but gave up again and Lived out his life sponsored by his cousin, King Louis XIV.

James II, like Louis, was a believer in the absolute monarchy, kings ruling by the grace of God, etc. He also believed, strangely enough, in religious liberty for all his subjects. The first belief made him an enemy of the aristocracy, the second angered the Curch of England. So there you go.

Today, November 13, back in 1685, when he was still very much the king—for another three years or so—King James II of England ordered his Attorney General to stop any proceedings against the Jews because “they should not be troubled upon the King’s account but they should quietly enjoy the free exercise of their religion whilst they behaved dutifully and obediently to his government.”

I’m a great believer in gratitude to those who have done right by us. I often think of King James II when I get into debates with my friends both on the left and on the right over my deep admiration for the late President Richard Nixon. Like James II, he was despised by the powers that be across the board (even though he won by a landslide in 1972). But in October, 1973, by about the tenth day of the Yom Kippur war, Israel had run out of practically everything, and it was Richard Nixon who saved our hide, with a fleet of Galaxy cargo planes the size of spaceships, that brought in ammunition and supplies.

So, my word for today is Gratitude. To James II and Millhouse I and all the misunderstood rulers and despots who did right by us.

The Golan Heights Wind Farm is located 3,150 ft. above sea level on Mount Bnei Rasan, three miles south of Quneitra in the Golan Heights.

In other words, just a stone’s throw away from the bloodiest civil war raging in the region.

It was the first wind farm ever built in Israel, back in 1992. It perates 10 Floda 600 wind turbines generating 6 MW for the Mey Eden mineral water bottling plant, the Golan Heights Winery and 20,000 local residents, give or take. The surplus is fed into the electrical grid.

Several more wind farms are planned in the Galilee, the Negev, and the Aravah regions.

Walking to shul on the shore of the Mediterranean in Netanya, holding on to my yarmulka against the crazy gale, I wonder why they haven’t filled up the horizon with off-shore wind turbines. Altogether, it’s nuts that a country with this much sun and this much wind has to keep looking for oil and natural gas in the ground.

You know why the off shore rigs Israeli companies keep building are yet to yield a drop? Because the midrash says there was no deluge in Eretz Israel. No deluge – no oil or natural gas. It’s scientific…

But, like I said, we’re blessed with so much wind and sun, we should be able to make with it more than just hot air…

Thousands of Syrian refugees poured across the border into Turkey on Friday after heavy fighting between Syrian opposition and loyalists to President Bashar Assad led to the deaths of 46 people in two days in the northeast and 68 throughout the rest of the country, including 47 civilians.

According to the United Nations, over 9,000 Syrians fled to Turkey in the span of one day, with 2,000 others escaping to neighboring countries. Approximately 408,000 Syrians are considered refugees in the area.

The UN anticipated that 700,000 Syrians would ultimately make their way to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq to escape the civil war, and that 4 million people would need emergency aid.

Now that we have lost the election of 2012, where our champion, a third-rate imitation of Ronald Reagan, without either his charm or his principles, who believed in absolutely nothing except being the best salesman he could be; let’s pause to reflect on all the things we lost out on through his defeat.

When we lose something, a relationship or a job, the grief comes from what we thought we had and what we imagined it was, not from what it truly was. Perspective means getting a true sense of what we had and what we never had to begin with.

So let’s look at what we might have had with President Mitt Romney.

We lost the chance to have universal health care, with the mandate, become a principle that every conservative was duty-bound to defend.

Oh I know. Mitt Romney was going to repeal ObamaCare. And he was. And by “repeal”, I mean he would have tinkered with it a bit and turned it into RomneyCare. And for the next four to eight years, it would have been heresy to ever suggest that we opposed universal health care with a mandate. Once Romney did that, it would have turned out that we only opposed universal health care with a mandate when it was badly enacted, without regard for businesses, by a Democrat.

We lost the chance to have a Republican president deliver weapons to Syrian Jihadists. Not to mention apply more sanctions to Iran in order to force it to the negotiating table. We could have been so privileged as to have a Republican president execute these two items of Obama’s agenda. Instead we’re stuck with a Democrat doing it.

Of course President Mitt Romney would not have done these things out of a deep abiding hatred for America and a sympathy for terrorists. But he would have still done them anyway. He wouldn’t have understood what he was doing, but his foreign policy would still have been sixty percent of Obama’s foreign policy, without the conscious malice. It would have been an improvement in that regard and only in that regard.

Those of you pro-Israeli types who imagine that a President Romney would have taken the boot off Israel’s neck, would have been shocked when a month after taking office, his Secretary of State would have commenced condemning Israeli “settlements” in Jerusalem. Just like it was in the days of the Bush Administration.

But, Romney would have been different, you say. He had a great rapport with Netanyahu. And Bush had a great rapport with Sharon. He had an even better one with Saudi Arabia. The same would have been true of Romney.

Still Romney would have appointed conservatives to the Supreme Court. And there you may even be right. I wouldn’t place any bets on it though. Oh we probably wouldn’t have gotten any Wise Latinas on his watch, but then again we might have, but I wouldn’t count on too many members of the Federalist Society ending up on the bench either.

Romney would at least have been pro-business. So was George W. Bush. And how well did he deal with the problems of government overreach? It’s all well and good to be pro-business, but even a former businessman who becomes a president, sees problems from the government’s end, not from the standpoint of a businessman.

And, for that matter, if you doubt any of this, do look back on the Bush years and consider that Romney would have been worse in every area than Bush. It’s human nature not to believe that, but it’s so. And if the election had gone another way, in a few months you would have seen it for yourselves.

The 2012 election was of course a disaster. A complete and thorough disaster. But it was a disaster because Obama and his cronies won. Not because Mitt Romney lost. Mitt Romney filled a void. He stepped into a spot that we needed, became a symbol and then he failed, because he was only a man, and worse still he was a blue state politician who was light on principles and heavy on being a people person.

What we lost in this election was not a chance for better leadership, but a chance to remove a bad leader. But what we gained was an end to complicity in the actions and policies of this administration. What we gained was a chance to use this defeat to launch a movement that can actually win an election by confronting the issues.

The Israel Defense Forces galvanized its internationally-recognized emergency response team to assist in a search and rescue operation in Ghana Wednesday night, after a shopping center collapsed in the country’s capital.

Doctors, engineers, and others, along with Magen David Adom staff, were sent to establisha field hospital in the area. So far, 51 people have been pulled from the rubble, with one confirmed death.

Once again I find myself congratulating the man I did not vote for. Barack Obama has been re-elected for a 2nd term as President of the United States.

As I said in my endorsement of his opponent, the President is a good and decent man. I don’t think he has been a bad President. He just hasn’t been a great President. His economic policies have not done enough to improve the economy. I thought a return to a more Reagan like approach was the way to go. But the country disagreed. Taxes will now increase and I don’t see how taking money out of the hands of the consumer is going to get that consumer to spend more.

When it came to Obama’s foreign policy, I gave him points for supporting Israel with deeds, if not so much with warmth. A lack of warmth that I attribute to his antipathy towards Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Not to the Jewish people. I in fact firmly believe that he has very warm feelings towards the Jewish people, genuine respect for Judaism, and a strong commitment to Israel’s survival as a Jewish State. Although I might disagree with him about how we get there.

The American people have spoken. By a very slim margin in the popular vote and by a huge margin in the electoral vote President Obama will be serving this great nation for another four years. Congratulations Mr. President.

I first want to echo what Governor Romney said in his concession speech: I hope and pray that the President succeeds in his task of restoring the economy to one of prosperity and in his goal to secure Israel’s existence. I also hope that he stays the course in his determination to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons. I only pray that he does not wait too long to take military action if (and I emphasized “if”) it is needed.

My biggest concern with respect to Israel is that comment he made to Putin about having more flexibility after the election. I’m not sure what that means. But if it means pressuring Israel to make more concessions without some sort of quid pro quo from the Palestinians, that is not a formula for peace. It is a formula for instability and terrorism on the part of the Islamists who will take advantage of any weakness caused by American pressure on Israel. But all that remains to be seen.

What direction Obama’s foreign policy will take can be seen by who the President chooses as Secretary of State for his 2nd term. My hope is that he will take someone that is not “more even handed” which is a code word for pro Palestinian.

Among the candidates I have heard mentioned by pundits for the post is John Kerry. Not a fan. He claims to be pro Israel. But I don’t trust this opportunistic flip-flopper.

I wonder if the President has considered Joe Lieberman. I know he’s available. And his foreign policy credentials are impeccable. As is his integrity. If the President does not want to be surrounded by “yes men” then Joe Lieberman would be a good choice.

Of course it will probably not be either one of those men. We’ll see. As I indicated – who the President picks will foreshadow what direction his foreign policy will take. I sure hope it is someone more like Lieberman than it is someone like Kerry.

I have also heard the name Jack Lew mentioned as a possible new Secretary of the Treasury to replace Tim Geithner. That too would be a good choice. Lew was the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under Bill Clinton. The OMB is a cabinet level White House office that devises and submits the president’s annual budget proposal to Congress. It sure would be nice to go back to the Clinton Era economy…

I mentioned at the time of my endorsement of Romney that it took me a while to decide who to vote for. That’s because I didn’t see all that much of a difference in policy with respect to the Middle East, nor did I see any solutions to our economic problems coming out of either candidate. This is still true. We will have to wait what happens. As I said, I hope the President succeeds in returning the economy to Clinton era prosperity. I hope his foreign policy benefits the State of Israel. And that his domestic policies benefit the country.